North Carolina -- Sunday (AND MONDAY).

Sunday we went to church and then visited the Raleigh temple. It's a little temple.


We wanted pictures of us at the temple, but nobody was there to take them.

After that, we dropped off our rental car and checked in at the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:15 pm, we had a connection in Detroit, and we'd be home by 9:14 pm.

Except it didn't and we weren't. Our first flight was delayed by over an hour. Once we finally left, the flight was only supposed to be an hour and 15 minutes, but then, Detroit only had one runway open. ONE. For the whole airport. We had to circle around somewhere in Ohio for a another hour, waiting to land.

When finally landed, there was no way we'd be able to make our connecting flight to Salt Lake. You know, since we were over an hour late. But don't worry, our connecting flight was delayed too! So we made it to our gate in time. And then we ate dinner. And then we waited some more. Our flight was delayed from 7:15 pm to 9:30. And then to 10:45. And then to 11:30. First we didn't have a plane. Then we had a plane and pilots, but no flight attendants. And then, we had flight attendants!, but they never showed up. See how this is going?

I guess Detroit was missing a lot of flight attendants because flights weren't coming from Minneapolis or Chicago like they were supposed to. (Oh, this is the weekend the MetroDome collapsed, just so you have some reference.) Finally, at 11:30, our pilots timed out and had to walk. (That's the way you're supposed to say it, but it means they could only fly for so long and they ran out of time waiting so they couldn't fly.) So, at 11:45-ish at night our flight was canceled.

As soon as they announced our flight was canceled, everyone booked it to gate A41 or whatever to deal with our canceled flights. The good news was that our flight was canceled because of crew, not because of weather so the airline paid for our hotel room, gave us meal vouchers, rebooked our flight, etc. And that's how we found ourselves standing outside the Detroit airport sometime after midnight, in the middle of a blizzard.

So. Our hotel was supposedly twenty or thirty minutes away from the airport, but it didn't have a shuttle. We found that out after about 10 minutes of waiting in the shuttle line outside. So then we went "inside" to wait for a taxi. The taxi line wrapped this way and then this way and then this way, etc. and was a long wait. Some guy that was going to the same hotel offered to split a cab with us. He was further up in the line, so we said yes. And then some other lady joined us.

We waited for a long time. The line wasn't moving and we were right by the door so every time anyone went in or out, the outside air blew at us. I. was. freezing. (Did I mention, I was in FLIP FLOPS! They would have been FINE inside the airport and I wasn't planning on leaving the airport!) Eventually some airport guy called out that there was a cab that could take three more people to where we were going. Except, there were four of us (counting the people we were supposed to share a cab with). We felt bad, but it was freezing cold and we were exhausted so we ditched our cab friends (rude, I know) and took the ride. It turned out it was some private car company. I didn't care. All I wanted to do was be warm and go to bed and I was willing to pay whatever it cost to get me there.

We finally made it to the hotel and checked in sometime around 2:00 am. Our new flight was scheduled for 10:00 am and we found out that the hotel DID have "shuttles" (i.e. two small vans), but they only ran on the hour, so we planned to be up at 7:30 or so and leave on the 8:00 shuttle.

Except, we woke up at 8:00. (We made it down to the lobby in ten minutes flat. I've never gotten ready that fast in my life.) Luckily, the hotel had realized they had a million people going to the airport, so they were just running the shuttle continuously. We finally got on the shuttle at 8:50 and made it through security by 9:35.

When we got to our gate (HA. The SAME gate as the night before!), we found out that our flight was already delayed. Until 11:30. And then 12:15. And then 12:45. FOR THE SAME REASON. We had a plane (the same plane), we had pilots (the same pilots), but no flight attendants.

We were finally able to round up some flight attendants and board the plane at 1:00. AND THEN, we spent an HOUR on the runway deicing the plane. We finally took off at about 2:00 and got to Salt Lake just before 5:00.

Worst. Flights. Ever.